SHELBURNE FALLS — The old Singley’s Furniture building is slated to come down, but it won’t go without one last hurrah: A mural of Penobscot- and Mohawk-inspired imagery created by local artist Peter Ruhf of Shelburne Falls.
A visionary artist for 52 years, Ruhf began putting up a chalk-and-house-paint mural, after getting permission from building owners Susan Stark and Josh Simpson, and is hoping to “Tom Sawyer” other local artists into painting other sections of the brick wall in the center of the village downtown.
“I’m getting a lot of action out there in the street,” said Ruhf, who was drawing images on the brick with thick colored chalks that were taped to a broom handle. “I started late one night on a drawing tablet, then I went out (to the wall) with kids’ chalk and started it.”
Ruhf said he started researching Penobscot and Mohawk imagery because of the Indian Peace Treaty at the nearby Glacial Potholes. A peace treaty between the Penobscot and Mohawk tribes from 1708 to 1758 prohibited fighting anywhere within a day’s journey of Salmon Falls, to preserve hunting and fishing there.
Some of Peter Ruhf’s paintings have been reproduced on notecards that are available in some Shelburne Falls shops, and his image of Shelburne Falls is on the cover of a new novel, “The Nutting Girl” by Fred DeVecca, which takes place in Shelburne Falls.
The Singley building is structurally compromised and will probably be demolished next spring, but Ruhf is giving the building a colorful ending.